Legion Prepatch (7.0.3) Pet Battling Primer

Introduction

This guide is an update to many past guides involving Battle Pets for Warlords of Draenor.

We'll discuss techniques that every new / intermediate Pet Battle Tamer should learn

Getting Started

A Quick Note on Notation

This guide will use the standard H/P/S/B notation for breeds.

For movesets, it will use the (#/#/#) notation, where 1 or 2 represents the first or second ability of the slot.That means you pick the top ability for 1 and the bottom ability for 2.X means the slot does not matter.

Step 1: Learn How to Battle

Before we begin taming battle pets, you will need to learn the Addestramento Mascotte ability and acquaint yourself with some of the mechanics of the battle pet page. This will cost you a modest one-time fee of at any Battle Pet trainer found in a major city.

Play around with the UI and figure out

How to engage in battles with wild pets.

How to use moves.

How to capture wild pets.

How to access your Pet Journal.

Important! Do note that this guide does not cover how to pet battle, but only details the steps you need to take to get started in Warlords of Draenor. If you have never played with battle pets before, I highly suggest you skim through this guide before you begin.Pet Battle and You -- A Trainer's Manual

Step 2: Acquaint Yourself with Mechanics

As you get the feel for some early pet battles, you may also want to get acquainted with

Learning breeds is a daunting task at first, but it really all boils down to personal preference. The breeds themselves are fairly straightforward, as each pet has a certain set of breeds they are available in, dictating what that individual pet is good at. You can view the available breeds for individual battle pets on their respective Wowhead pages. More on breeds later!

Step 3: Learn to Use External Resources

Here are some external resources you may consider getting acquainted with.

For addons, I have found in personal experience that the addon PetTracker is particularly useful as an all-inclusive addon for Pet Battling. It shows your opponent's moves, what moves are super-effective / not-very-effective, breedIDs (and available breeds), as well as the locations of the pets you are looking for. It also tells you which pets you are missing, by breed, rarity, or zone. All in all, it's very useful and worth a look at.

WarcraftPets is very similar to Wowhead, but is generally better at laying out information for viewing information about specific pets. It also features community ratings and comments about each pet, in case the questions you are looking for aren't addressed anywhere else.

Petsear.ch is a searchable database of all battle pets by their moves. The website may run a little slower due to the sheer amount of data available. However, with it, you will be able to look up pets that have a certain combination of moves, or pets that are good at specifically countering others.

PvP Pet Battles is a very self-explanatory website that features several tested teams and strategies for those trying to get into PvP. It is a great place to look up the current metagame and learn tips that will help you win against other players.

Step 4: Start Your Collection

Once you feel comfortable enough with the UI, you can jump right into taming pets.

Please read me! With Warlords of Draenor, you no longer need to have any pets to start battling. That means that older guides that require you to level up a pet from 1 to 25 by hand are now obsolete. The only thing you need is to be level 100 and have a Level 3 Garrison. You do not need a Pet Menagerie to start.

Look for the quest Magia risvegliata/Magia risvegliata in your Garrison to get started.You can complete this quest once per character.This quest will provide you with a free Pietra Evolutiva Definitiva, which boosts any pet to level 25 instantly.Using this stone on the right pet is key. Refer below in the Starter Pets section to get an idea of what to do.

Starter Pets

Your First Pets

If you haven't any level 25 pets already, I highly recommend you use the battle-stone on one of the following:

Idolo Anubisath is a very highly praised battle pet for a very good reason. He is extremely resilient because of his H/H breed, his Humanoid type, and his moveset. Alone, he can solo or severely weaken most of the battle pet tamers in the world. If you can get one, please prioritize it!

If you cannot get one right away, the others are good alternatives. Regardless, you should aim to have all three at max level as soon as you can.

Your Second / Third Pet

Chance to drop from Cromaggus in Blackwing Lair.Can also be obtained on the Auction House, or via in-game trade.

#2 -- After you pick your starter, you should immediately capture a wild Proto-Draghetto di Smeraldo. They are encountered in the Savage Thicket in Sholazar Basin between levels 21-22. Grind this guy up to level 25 as soon as you can, as he is indispensable in many situations. If you have time, try for Green quality or higher. However, if you can't find a Blue, don't worry because you can upgrade him later using a Pietra Evolutiva Rara Notevole.

#3 - It is no real rush, but try to get a Crominius sooner than later. He is integral to leveling pets in Draenor.

Done? After that, if you haven't already, return and get the other two starter pets. To bolster your ranks, you can also fly around Draenor and capture wild pets. Most of the wild pets in Draenor aren't very good, but they can be useful because they start at an already high level. Look for Pinzatore Gusciofreddo, Saltafango, and Beccobrado. You won't use them particularly often, but you may appreciate them in specific situations.

Other Recommended Pets

Utility Pets

The following pets will be of use to you eventually, but are definitely not essential. Don't worry about these guys until you are comfortable with 2-manning at least a couple of your pet battle dailies.

What breed is the best?

Pets that you learn from items or the Battle Pet trainer will 99% only have one available breed! Generally, you should only worry about breed when capturing wild pets. This means that your Idolo Anubisath will never be anything other than H/H! Nice!

The "best breed" will vary from pet to pet. The only way to know which one you want is to understand the specific pet's role. Here are some guidelines:

If your pet needs to tank and it has self-healing available, invest in Power. Most healing abilities scale off of power (so you will last longer), and the best mitigation is actually killing the target before it kills you! In addition to the tank abilities listed above, look for abilities like Assorbimento, Ondata di Cura, or Benedizione Antica.Example: Lumaca Gusciolucente

P/P

Glass-cannons

Needless to say, glass cannon pets want to maximize their Power. If you notice a litany of high-damage moves, but no way to sustain your health, your goal should be to deal as much damage as possible. Dragoide and Bestiale pets can utilize this bonus particularly well. A lot of Non Morta pets function as really good glass cannons as well, since their racial ensures they get the last two attacks in.Example: Draghetto del Nexus

P/P; P/S

Bruisers

Some pets appear to be glass cannons, but can play as bruisers if they have some form of regeneration, such as the bonuses from Umanoide or Meccanica. Invest in Speed to get the last hit in.Example: Cucciolo del Kun-Lai

S/x

Dodgers, stunners

Speed is very useful to pets that have moves that stun or dodge. Look for Schivata, Evanescenza, or Calcio dell'Oscuramento. If you use these moves first in a turn, it will prolong the effect to two rounds instead of just one. Be sure to pick a pet that is already naturally fast, or else the extra speed points will essentially be a waste. Pets with Volante typically need Speed less because their ability gives them a huge bonus. However, if your Volante pet relies heavily on going first, you may want to have at least S/x to make sure you are still useful past 50% health.Example: Coniglio

What is the best way to level up my Battle Pets?

Pet Carry

The easiest way to level up your pets is by using a 2-pet carry team versus the daily Master Tamers in Draenor. When you win a pet battle, all the pets that participated in the battle receive experience that counts toward their level. If any of the pets you use in battle are level 25 already, they do not take any experience from your other pets. In other words, if you go to a battle with two level 25 pets and a level 1 pet, your level 1 pet will receive all the experience for the battle as long as it participates for at least one turn.

Three things to note:

Important! In order for a pet to gain experience, it must survive through the end of one turn. It doesn't need to be present at the beginning of the turn. This means that if your carry pet is the first pet on your roster, it won't receive experience if you swap it out immediately. However, if you swap the pet in mid-fight, then swap it back out, you will receive full experience. Be careful when you swap in if your pet is especially low level, as it will easily be one-shot!

The only reason your carry pet needs to attack is if it was the pet you sent out first. Otherwise, swap in and swap out!

Read me! If you carry more than one pet at a time, the experience gained will be split among them. This is okay if you want to level more than one pet at once, but is generally ineffective because then you will be left with two mid-level pets rather than one high level one.

If you have chosen the right starter pets, you can easily start in Draenor.Pandaria takes some extra work to unlock, but it is also a viable place to start if you are having trouble.

A big tip! Unless you are in a big rush, save your Pietra Evolutiva Perfettas until the pet you are training is around level 18-20. Using them at low levels is a waste since the experience required per level increases as your pet gets stronger.

Battle-Stones

Battle-Stones upgrade the quality of your pet, raising its overall stats. You can obtain various types of Battle-Stone corresponding to the different pet types by doing dailies. However, the most reliable way to upgrade pets now may be to spend per pet.

Battling Combos

This section will acquaint you with a few potent combos that you can use to trivialize fights against large targets, such as the Pandaria Bestie Leggendarie, the Draenor Piccoli terrori di Tanaan, or certain Pet Menagerie bosses. These combos each require a specific set of pets, so it may be of use to you to learn these to plan what you might want to capture / befriend next.

(Removed) Howl-bombing

With the advent of Legion, howl-bombing is no longer a viable strategy.

Howl-bombing is by far the most popular (and effective) way to deal with high-profile targets. The pets involved are:

You begin by using Maledizione Tragica then Ascensione Empia if you have them. (If not, the combo should still work if you skip this step. It is kind of overkill if you start off this way.) Once Unborn Val'kyr dies, you should bring out Pandaren Water Spirit and use Geyser, followed by Gorgo. This sequence of moves sets up 2-3 delayed damage moves that will all trigger on the same turn to deal massive damage to one target.

Once you have the buffs set up, swap into your last pet and Ululato away. At the end of the turn, the target should explode and die. If you are using Chrominius and the target somehow survived, you can finish it off with Impeto di Potere.

Note that, sometimes, this combo can be hard to pull off against enemies with lots of stuns or interrupts. It is very sensitive to timing, so learn and adjust based on the battle!

Storm-flocking

Storm-flocking is a strong way to break down elite targets or big Magic-types because it deals heavy amounts of damage in increments. It is particularly strong against Beast-types due to the nature of Richiamo del Fulmine.

Afterward, swap to your second pet and use Graffionero. This move increases damage taken by the target from all sources by 130, including the damage from Fel Immolate and the bonus damage from Call Lightning. With Gruppo di Caccia or Stormo, you apply Difese Infrante to the target, increasing the damage they take even more!

The beauty of this combo is the astounding synergy the moves have with each other. Since flock moves hit multiple times in one turn, they benefit multiple times from Black Claw / Shattered Defenses / Call Lightning. The damage from Call Lightning is also boosted further by Black Claw / Shattered Defenses. It's really quite scary if you think about it.

Combining Rot with a Critter-type move guarantees you land super-effective hits on the enemy. Using a multi-hit move like Flank or Stampede allows you to dip multiple times into Wild Magic. There isn't much to say here, but it is always an option if you are having trouble with specific pets. (However, there isn't much this can achieve that howl-bombing can't.)

Sunlight + Explode

I'm only mentioning this one, not because it's particularly useful, but because it's cute. By using Luce Solare or Benedizione Antica, you can raise the maximum health of your battle pets to empower Esplosione. Since Explode's damage is based off of the pet's maximum health, these moves will boost the strength of the explosion. This combo probably won't kill anything by itself (and you'll lose a pet in the process). However, to note, it does ignore the elite pet damage reduction buff.

Don't forget that Esplosione can (catastrophically) miss! It also has a damage bonus against Beast-types, dealing 60% max health instead of 40%. I am not sure if it can crit yet.

Draenor Daily Carry Guide

If you've made it here, it probably means that you're ready to learn how to power-level your pets. In this section, we'll cover some tried and true strategies to defeating the Pet Tamers found around Draenor using only two (or one) level 25 pets. This allows us to bring a "carry pet" with us to soak up the experience.

If you only have one level 25 pet, I recommend you start off by defeating Ashlei every day until your roster is strong enough to take on the rest of the tamers.At the very minimum, you should be defeating her every day, even if you venture into Pandaria.

When you can, you can also get Cymre Brightblade on farm. Though, this fight will require some more finesse.

Once you get Crominius, you will be able to defeat Taralune and Vesharr as well.

Do these pet battles daily and you will have a full roster of level 25 pets in no time!

If you are having immense difficulty, try to follow the quest chain Audrey Burnhep/Varzok. This quest will take you around Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms to defeat weak Pet Tamers until you end up in Pandaria. Pandaria Tamers do not award as much experience as Draenor ones do, but they are still worthwhile, especially if you are just starting off. This will take some time.

Ashlei should be the easiest of all the Draenor daily tamers, since one of her team members is an Elekk Plushie that can't actually attack! Many pets can solo her, so she should be where any beginning trainer starts.

When Romolo comes out, swap to your carry pet. You will take a Ululato, but that's good.

Swap and clean up.

Cymre Lamafulgida is a long fight to perform a carry on, but is easy once you master it. Her specialty is pets that heal more than 50% of their max life at once. Of note, she has legendary quality pets! (This doesn't actually mean anything, but it's neat.)

Tarr il Terribile is honestly a lot more trouble than he's worth. He uses three very powerful Humanoid-type pets, which really restricts the pets you can use to form a carry team with. Undead-types are key, especially pets with Tempesta d'Ossa.

Note that Vilcorruzione makes it impossible to bring carry pets along with you. This is not a problem, as it is hardly worth the trouble anyway.

Pandaria Daily Carry Guide

If you are having trouble in Draenor, you can get a different headstart in Pandaria.

Unlike Draenor, you cannot just start pet battling in Pandaria. You need to finish Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outland, Northrend, and Cataclysm first! Head to Stormwind / Orgrimmar to find the quest Audrey Burnhep/Varzok. This will guide you around the world on a long adventure culminating in Pandaria. If you are new, this quest will help you get acquainted with pet battling better, but it will take some time to complete. The first 80% of the quest chain is trivial, since you will have a level 25 pet versus very low level enemies.

Pandaria is very easy! The following carry strategies apply to Pandaria Pet Tamers. To note, most of these strategies only require Idolo Anubisath or Proto-Draghetto di Smeraldo. If you are following this guide, you should already have those two.

Note!Ciclone may make this fight difficult to carry in. A pet with Tempesta di Sabbia is preferred to nullify the damage to your carry pet, but you are free to try it without if your carry pet is of sufficient level that it can take 1-4 Ciclone hits. If not, you can always take a chance that it will miss a lot.

All Bestie Leggendarie battles can be trivialized by howl-bombing, and most with storm-flocking. It is generally not very useful to bring carry pets to these fights, but you're free to try.

The Celestial Tournament

The Il Torneo dei Celestiali is the ultimate challenge for all Pet Battle tamers. Even nowadays, the Tournament is still hard for those who are unprepared. As you become more acquainted with carrying your pets to 25, you may yet gather up an arsenal great enough to succeed! (Think of it like the Elite Four of Pet Battling!)

There are many strategies to defeat the Celestial Tournament tamers, so it is difficult to catalog them all. This guide will not attempt to do so.

The key to victory is adaptability. You cannot heal your pets by normal means in the Celestial Tournament, so you must have an itinerary in case anything goes wrong. That's right! You must defeat all three Grand Master tamers AND the Four Celestials without healing!

To get you started, here is a short shopping list of pets you should consider:

This list is not exhaustive! Please supplement your list with any other pets you need.

The following pets were personally selected if they fulfilled one of two criteria: (1) they are useful for two or more fights or (2) their performance in at least one fight is great enough (i.e. a pet can solo or nearly solo a fight).

Also note that it does not include pets mentioned earlier in the guide.

Commenti

Commento di Chrosta

Cool guide, but you forgot items and buffs with +% xp for battle-pets. And in the Starter pet chapter, you have "lvl 98 and Garrison rank 3" ... that is wowhead's mistake ... maybe that Q have requirements lvl 98 in the DB, but it need Garrison rank 3 too, and building that rank 3 have requirements lvl 100. So you can do that Q only on lvl 100. The same like building Menangerie (it have lvl 98, but it need Garrison rank 3 too). You have 5* from me.

Commento di D34thsEyEs

Don't forget that the Ultimate Battle Training Stone can also be earned during the Pet Battle Event by completing its quest: 'The Very Best' by winning 5 PvP pet battles with a full team of Lvl 25 pets. It can be done only once per event I believe.

Commento di hagu

TYVM!

Is there a list of the pet battle nerfs? As a noob, everytime I try something I read on the web, it has been nerfed or perhaps I am doing it wrong. The lots of XP for your character, pet xp in your garrison, etc.

Commento di Marloss

On Wastewalker Shu, while I manage to keep the leveling pet alive, I don't manage to take him down with Anubisath Idol and Emerald Proto-Whelp. The latter always dies to his last pet from its humanoid ability.

Edit: Would also be nice if you included Aki the Chosen, as she is part of the Pandarian Grand Masters.

Edit 2: The strategy for the Thundering Pandaren Spirit is impossible. It fails every time with the rabbit dying to Darnak the Tunneler's Stone Rush, assuming one isn't unlucky with crits and die earlier.

Commento di Animosa

Hello!

My question is, that if I capture a poor/common/uncommon pet, and then I uprgrade it to rare qualitiy, it's stats would be as if I have captured it as a rare or not?

Commento di Troelsy

Lovely guide. You mention Beasts as best as power breeds. I sometimes find if you can find a H/H beast that has naturally high HP, it works better. Because the bigger your HP is the more HP you have left when you hit 50% HP and your racial kicks in and you do 25% more damage.

Commento di kitkat2

I'm really lost when it comes to pet breeds. I understand the concept of it all, but I fail to grasp the application of the info. Your guide has come the closest to helping me understand the application part of pet breeds with the section of your guide titled "What Breed is Best?" Can you further clarify how one would go about deciphering whether any particular pet would be a tank, glass cannon, bruiser, etc.? Is there a set way to determine this? Even better, is there a list that either you or anyone else reading this comment is aware of that exists that I may be pointed to?

Otherwise, this is a very comprehensive and useful guide and I have been using it as my Pet Battling Bible! Thank you so very much for what must have been an extreme effort and amount of time to compile so much information for the benefit of the community. Be forewarned though, you may have taught someone too well with this guide and you might, unknowingly, find yourself up against them in a PvP pet battle one day! lol

Commento di mallphas

What represent those number in front of the pets names. (Ex. 1/1/1 or 2/2/2)?

Commento di Kl1monWoWHead

Can you please tell what are the pre-patch changes in your guide? Like some sort of change log would be cool. I really don't want to read the whole thing again. Thanks for the very informative guide.

Commento di Earthsense13

This needs to be updated concerning PWS's change to Whirlpool and Dive. You can no longer use both Whirlpool and Geyser.

Commento di deviouskat89

Wonderful guide! I got a late start on pet battling, and many other popular guides are outdated and not updated past Pandaria. I hadn't realized that I should be working in Draenor at the same time for the easier tamers. Thank you!

Commento di Zuckerguss

Here are some pet battles in Legion that can also be good for leveling. (Note that these aren't up every day.) Various pet leveling strategies are on the linked pages. Some of these battles can be used to carry a level 1 pet, other battles require the carry pet be higher level than that in order to survive. Quests marked with * are part of Mascotte delle mascotte.